What an amazing surprise I got when I opened ‘Writers’ Forum’ this month and found my story in print! (Cue happy dance and more than a little shrieking, if I’m honest!)
My story was published because it won second place in their flash fiction competition. (I was highly commended in December, so I’m inching closer to the win!) Competitions are often overlooked as routes to publication, so here’s three inspirational tips to help you give this route a try.
1. Get your entry count up!
Sounds obvious, right? But it’s true, the more entries you get out there, the more chance you have of impressing a competition judge with your work. I know this is easier said than done, but regular visitors to this blog might remember my own New Year’s resolution. I decided to enter at least one competition each month. By sticking to that simple goal, look what I achieved! By March, I’d got published. You absolutely can do it too.
Take Action
First, set yourself a target for competition entries, whatever you think is achievable, even if that’s entering your first ever writing competition. Next, tell me about it in the comments and, if you follow this blog, I will email you to support, cheerlead and chivvy you to achieve your goal 🙂
(Plus, you’ll receive a free short story and an email when I post something new to the blog.)
Not sure where to find competitions to enter? Fear not, I’ll be posting a list at the start of every month, with as many free-entry competitions on there as I can possibly find.
Right, on to the actual writing…
2. Follow the Brief
I can’t stress this enough! Make sure you read the brief for every competition, then read it again, then again. I know, this one sounds obvious too! But I’ve seen judges’ comments enough times to realise that a decent proportion of people don’t do this.
I know of contests that asked for pieces in a specific point of view, that include particular objects or embrace a certain theme. They will all get some work that doesn’t follow the brief. It doesn’t matter how good those stories are, they will never be successful. The competition can’t very well ask for pieces in the first person and then award the winner to something written in the third person, they would lose all credibility. So, you can easily put your work ahead of all those writers who didn’t read the brief thoroughly or, even worse, thought their story was so good it wouldn’t matter that it didn’t fulfil the brief.
3. Don’t Try to be Original
What? I hear you scream. The thing is, I think a lot of writers, myself included, sometimes spend too long trying to dream up the most fabulous, original storyline for their work. Now, this isn’t a bad thing necessarily. But, being original doesn’t mean you have to come up with a never-before-seen chain of events for your characters to go through.
It’s not a problem to tell a story that has already been told. You just have to tell it in a new way, from a unique viewpoint, with different (and vibrant) characters, an enticing setting, or ideally all of the above. You can take the oldest stories in human history, and authors frequently do, and reimagine them, rewrite them with a modern lens, or just use them as inspiration for your piece.
This works particularly well for short fiction, especially flash fiction. Check out this post, where I demonstrate, step-by-step, exactly how to write a flash fiction piece based on a very old story, in this case, a nursery rhyme.
I really hope you find these tips helpful. Please do get in touch in the comments if you have any questions. Or if you just want to chat about writing, I’d love nothing more. By the way, you can read my published story in issue #231 of Writers’ Forum. It’s the current issue on sale at time of writing, or available here as a back issue.
If you’re enjoying my website, please subscribe to my email list, it’s FREE! You’ll receive an exclusive e-copy of my BBC radio-broadcasted short story, ‘One February Night’, absolutely free (normally £4.99 from Amazon as part of an anthology). There will be no spam, I promise you, I detest it! You’ll only receive emails personally written by me, that let you know about new fiction and blog posts on the site, and contain extras like writing news and top tips. You’ll also be first in line to receive offers on free and discounted books and stories of mine.
Happy Writing 🙂
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